Guest post provided by Guus Goorts from Yago Languages.
For a language spoken by so many people, Mandarin is an official language in surprisingly few countries. Outside of the Greater China region (China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan), I can really think only of one country, the one I’m living in: Singapore.
Chinese character tattoos are everywhere in the West: I'm sure many of us know someone with some kind of whimsical word or phrase - or maybe even their own name - adorning their skin in ink. They're popular for a number of reasons: they look prettier than Roman letters, they can encompass many different meanings, and they look exotic to non-Chinese. Some people simply think they look cool. However, these tattoos are frequently performed by artists who have very little - if any - knowledge of the Chinese language.
An ancient Cantonese saying goes, 'Anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies is edible'. Even if we could, in theory, agree with this mantra, all too often we're told tales of Chinese eating habits that strike us as downright freaky, at least by our Western standards. Silkworms, duck feet, fish eyes, soft-shell turtles, scorpions: all dishes that we, as foreigners, may have stumbled upon in China.
Every English-speaking tourist in China has, no doubt, come across his or her fair share of 'Chinglish' -- that is, strangely worded, messy translations of English, as seen on signage, restaurant menus, clothing, and so on. There are information booths marked by signs reading 'question authority', handicapped restrooms labeled 'deformed man toilet', and extra large sizes at restaurants defined as 'lard bucket'.
The answer to this question might be more complicated than you think -- maybe even more complicated than the characters themselves! In this article, you will learn what makes the Chinese writing system so special, and the reasons why sometimes the number of characters varies from case to case.
Did you know that China is the acknowledged homeland of tea (Chá - 茶)? Out of the three major warm beverages; - tea, coffee, hot chocolate – tea is consumed the most in the whole world.
Assigned to each person depending on the year of birth, the animals of the Chinese Zodiac represent fortune, personality and fate. You me be a loyal dog, a chatty rabbit, or a funny monkey, but have you ever wondered how the 12 animals were chosen?
It all happened many years ago…
The more you know...
An image has been going around for some time, showing that Africa is bigger than USA, China, India, Japan and all of Europe combined.
Indeed, Africa is 3 times bigger than China. China is the third (or fourth biggest country, depending on the definintion) in the world with an area of 6.4% of the total of the world.
Here you can see a preview of the image:
